Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation

People tend to think of creativity and strategy as opposites. This book argues that they are far more similar than we might expect. More than this, actively aligning creative and strategic thinking in any enterprise can enable more effective innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and organizing for the future.

Creative Strategy is written by Chris Bilton, Director of Warwick University's Centre for Cultural Policy Studies and Stephen Cummings of Victoria University’s School of Management. Combining and building upon the experience reflected in their previous books (Recreating Strategy, Images of Strategy, Management and Creativity and The Strategy Pathfinder) Bilton and Cummings argue that the divide between 'creative' and 'other' organizations or industries is a misconception that actually diminishes creative potential in both of these domains. By considering strategy as a creative process (and vice versa), the authors define ‘creative strategy’ as a mindset which switches between opposing processes and characteristics, and which drives every aspect of the business.

Subsequently, they draw experiences and cases from across this false divide: from the music industry, sports, fashion, Shakespearean theatre companies, creative and media organizations and the military, as well as what we might regard as more mundane providers of mainstream products and services, to show that much can be learned from any of these arenas.

In so doing, they discover the need to challenge another dysfunctional partition. While there are many separate books and studies on innovation, on entrepreneurship, on leadership and on organization, sustainable creative strategy requires the deft integration of all of these activities.

Creative Strategy subsequently promotes an interconnected four stage process, outlining:

1. The six degrees of strategic innovation;
2. The five phases of strategic entrepreneurship;
3. A strategic leadership quadrant to aid developing leadership 'from the middle';
4. And, a framework identifying the vices that an organization must steer between to ensure that creative potential is achieved and refreshed for the future.